THE PACK ON YOUR BACK is both reassuring and cumbersome for what seems the third hour of shadeless noon as you think, “This one will definitely stop.” (Actually, if it were really three hours you’d have slumped your pack against…
Category: Writing
My own serious stuff; the craft itself; those who inspire me in it; the art of reading.
Another Great Line In Search Of Context
“I SEE YOUR LOGIC, MADAM, and raise you a contradiction.” (Line derived from conversation with Ann, whose blog is also very cool. — The Mgt.)
Gritty Comfortoir
AND AFTER ALL IS SAID and done, and the horrible truth revealed The bodies taken away, the last question answered Comes William S Burroughs (the gravelly graandpa who’s done things the grownups won’t let you ask him about). “Interdimensional Alka…
Who Is This Prosatio Silban, And What Does He Want?
IT ALL STARTED IN 2005, when I decided to write fantasy tales. Or maybe 1995, when I was bored with the between-task tedium of printer’s work. (Of course, it really started in 1977, because that was the year I discovered…
Fable, With Apocalypse
IN THE MIDDLE OF A flat grey wasteland, under a grey streaky sky, a handful of figures warmed themselves at a snapping fire. “Hey! What are you doing?” One of the figures had turned to stare across the waste —…
Aside
“GOOD GOD, MAN — WHAT HAPPENED?” “Well, I was on the freeway, and my car stalled right in front of a hurtling semi. Fortunately, the orchestra changed tunes at exactly that moment and distracted everyone.” “What orchestra?” “See?”
What I Stand, For
HAVING JUST RECEIVED ORDERS FROM Fearless Leader to define my principles in 106 characters or less and then disperse them yea seedlike to the multitudes, I replied as follows: Clearer thinking. Don’t litter. Say “please” and “thank you” and mean…
NextWave SF: “Retropunk”
FIRST CAME CYBERPUNK. THEN STEAMPUNK. And by 2021, … RETROPUNK. Shiny robots. Gleaming atom-powered spaceships. Martian canal races. Alien arcologies in the jungles of Venus. Male pronouns. All the glory of a big exploitable universe sans angst or post-apocalypse modernism.…
Five Summer Haiku
(THESE WERE WRITTEN JUNE 21 on the unnetworked “writing laptop,” which I only mention to explain the last verse and thank you for not skipping ahead. And now, this.) So soon the heat comes after long weeks of spring rain.…
Free Verse: “And God Said”
SEEK ME, EACH OF YOU In your own way. And when you find Me, Prove it: Leave each other The hell alone.
Prosatio Silban and the Best Dish In The World
IN THE EMERALD INCESSANCE, THAT great sprawling swamp east of epicurean Pormaris, Prosatio Silban was searching for his world’s tastiest meal. The Emerald Incessance was hundreds of square miles of hummock, tussock and overtowering reeds, inhabited by societal castoffs and…
Poker Face
WE WERE FIVE MEN PLAYING draw poker. “Ante up, gentlemen,” said R. “Nickel apiece.” The cards went round once, twice, thrice. B coughed. T took a sip of his Cuba Libre. R sent the cards round again. And again. We…